Subscriptions, Season Passes & Other Goodies From the Monetization Toolbox - Uffe Flarup

[Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you [Music] so now we're going to talk about subscriptions season passes and other goodies from the monetization toolbox and we've got uh from multi-scription who's gonna come and talk about that oh it's coming up hello everyone and Century for attending this talk I hope you had a great evening yesterday um so today as I was already mentioned we're going to talk about subscriptions season passes and other funny things from the monetization toolbox for your mobile games my name is and I'm working for my description

programmer by trade um started doing games programming back in the late 90s when internet started to become a household thing in Denmark at least uh right now I'm the senior technical lead at my description where I'm working on our on lease product that of course helps football descriptions that's a part of what we do in addition to this I'm teaching game development to kids I've been using Unity for the past two seasons and I'm switching to a Unreal Engine it is not related to the pricing changes I'll just say that but uh they had a interest in the Unreal Engine as well so I grabbed them while they are young and lure them into the game development industry uh and I still play games as well level 43 in Pokemon go so I'm I'm not going to say I'm pretty good at it I just played a lot with my kids so uh

the agenda a little bit about designing in monetization early on in your mobile games uh and a brief recap of some of the monetization options you have for your mobile games point three will without doubt be the place where I put main on most of my in Focus games that has a bit longer retention because that is where subscriptions really shine that's what we're good at so that will be the main focus of these talks as well and hopefully we will have time for questions in the end so first thing to keep in mind I mean always remember that your players would love to pay for your game they just do it in different ways and they certainly do it in in different ways that I did when uh when I was kid and was putting quarters into the machines

um they would love to pee always keep that in mind but they just have they have different ways of doing it they have different limits um different possibilities so there are a lot of opportunities here for aiding monetization to your game some people can pay with their time and attention by watching ads so that's one opportunity you have other players pay with their MasterCard different audience different people different opportunities that you should all Embrace in in your game there are a lot of opportunities here and yeah let's keep in mind that they have different uh opportunities all and different possibilities the players we're we're having here and of course one thing is yes they would like to pay it needs to be in a way that the player is comfortable with and of course also

in a way they have access to not everyone have access to their credit card especially not their parents credit cards um so I have teenagers now they have started to get their own money that they can spend but my youngest kids don't have it yet so um we need to tap into those opportunities we have here for monetizing our mobile games and why when it is to think your target audience into the game early I of course I'm working under the assumption that we would actually like to make some money on on our game and not only to make money but we would also like to have players that come to play our game I know there are certainly some developers out there that careless about that um but I'm I'm mainly focusing on those

of you that are actually interested in in making some money on your game so you can fund your next game and help pay your bills and help pay for all the stuff that your family needs as well so think your target audience of your game um I think the track in the audience of your game uh into your game design think about it early um the target audience you have what means a payment do you expect that they have is it a target audience that like only can watch ads or do they have access to other monetization options as well um and keep user segmentation into account early some of your players will without doubt be willing to spend more money than others so figure check into account early how are you going to utilize that in your game you don't have to like develop well

develop that right away but keep into your mind in some way that you need to have something to offer you a really Big Spenders because there will be some of those so of course you want to have something to offer them while still having something good to offer those that have like less means to spend on your game and when going to a publisher it will without doubt give you a great advantage to keep that that all into account early on as most of you already know uh ads without doubt is the most common way to do it um and the the usages of Ed is one of the few places where we in the least have like a clear requirement when using our product that if you have a paying subscriber you must remove the uh intrusive ads or the ads that the players don't initiate themselves we see a lot that the

rewarded videos are super popular even among paying clients um paying players and even those that have enough money to spend they still enjoy the rewarded ads it's sort of fun they get something extra by watching a video and they can decide it when they want to watch that video in-game Billboards and branded Partnerships are powerful as well the in-game Billboards can be um check Stills in the background that advertises something it can be like building with air that comes from a certain company with their logo on top and stuff like that which in a non-intrusive way also give you a source of income for your game so the players can play uninterrupted and then they nicely in the background will see something branded from your partners and we have the in-app purchases as well

offer walls which I see my kids use a lot and audio ads as well I have heard that as well my kids are playing they are also good opportunities as well and then of course the in-app purchases will touch upon those a little bit because they work well together with subscriptions also you can combine these two um very well so you can let of course sell more gold sell more levels and the frequently also used one that if you make any real money purchase you will remove the ads as well for that player and as mentioned earlier um games with a little bit longer we changed are the once we work most with at my description because it um that's the one that work really shines with a subscription service

so for those of you that are designing a game where you plan to keep your players on board the game for a long period of time like months preferably you definitely want to have something good to offer them and of course monetize so you can pay all your content developers that are working on all this stuff so subscription really powerful way where you get a steady source of income every month which can then help fund your next project and also you can use that as budgeting tool because you can kind of predict okay how much am I going to earn the next couple of months maybe hopefully it goes up maybe it goes down you can start to predict how much money are you getting in every month so that can help you scale up your next project seasons passes a little bit like a subscription as well

you sell them maybe twice a year that you sell a season pass for That season um so they don't automatically renew but they have a flavor very similar to a subscription where it automatically renews and then of course you can sell the paid premium content in your game as well and those and all these can be combined you don't have to pick just one you can it's as a title of the target is this big toolbox and you can pick many of these and combine in good ways for a for your game and for subscriptions we distinguish between two types of subscriptions we prefer to call them the all you can eat model and the supplemental model and from those of you that are streaming movies and series TV series all you can eat is a little bit like Netflix you get

all the shows all the movies have case me a season missing Minor Detail but in you get access to everything that Netflix has in one subscription and you can consume as much as you like for no external cost the supplementary model for subscription that is more like what Amazon is doing with Amazon Prime you get a lot of stuff with the Amazon subscription you get access to their SEO you should get the free shipping but it really encourages you to spend more to get the discounts to benefit from the free shipping that is what Amazon has been really successful with with the supplemental model and that is also what we started out with when we started out five years ago so we have our subscription service where players get access to a lot already in the games the ads are removed they get

some benefits but all the games can add more on top and they can add extra in-app purchases on top where you like get 50 discount for everything you spend or you get a 20 extra on top for everything you spend so that's two different ways of viewing a subscription and one thing to keep in mind is that with the supplemental model it's not a cap you're having on your subscription it's a starting point for additional revenue and then you can add um top of that and as mentioned earlier the steady source of income will help fund your next projects your next seasons whatever it is you're working on together with your team and having a subscription also has a psychological effect that it helps keep your players retained because they're already paid and hopefully they enjoy

what they are what they are playing so they would like to keep playing the stuff that they already paid for and that they have in their subscription to get some good value from from their subscription and if you then also add social features that are exclusive uh for your subscribers then you have a good way to retain them inside your your game as well so what to offer to where you are paying subscribers um as mentioned earlier the only thing we require when using our subscription service is that paying subscribers you do not see the um annoying ads basically so no interstitial ads no um no banners that overlay your game but you can keep in the rewarded videos um so we call that uninterrupted gameplay so if you pay for a game you should be allowed to play as much without any interruptions accelerated progressions cooldowns could

possibly be uh be shorter in your game um you'll get access as a subscriber to areas that are exclusive to subscribers um chat rooms that are only for your subscribers so you can feel part of that elite club in your game um unique items unique clothing uh unique cars whatever it is you're a your game is unique brand to show off your your Flair um a little plus star like in the PlayStation Plus subscription add in these small little features um to your game a part of what we do is that we have a game design team that can help you identify some super easy wins in in this matter so that with little effort you will be able to find some good things that you can

provide to your subscribers other than just the uninterrupted gameplay and so the uninterrupted gameplay is just like the starting point and then you can add more on top of that and then and encourage your players to to spend more in the game a couple of things to uh remember when getting started on adding subscriptions uh to your game uh they are already multiple subscription Services out there some of them require uh exclusivity rights we don't subscriptions can also coexist with your monetization options that you already have in your game and you can combine them so you can it's not like you pick either a subscription or in a purchase all the season pass you can combine these sell the season purse season pass with discounts if you're a subscriber

add extra value to your in-app purchases for those that are subscribers just like Amazon is doing that as well um when you have an Amazon Prime subscription so your subscriptions are really like the starting point for um the added monetization it's not a cap on how much you can spend like you have five dollars a month for your subscription it's not a cap but it's a starting point for what you can um in with your subscription and you can think that into account early when when making your game um yes so that is almost everything I have today so um if any of you have any questions we can do that now um or you can come find us at our booth later we are in the meeting room over there thank you very much for listening thank

you very much thank you very much please I mean I think we've had a conversation like this before I'm I'm very much with you guys in this uninterrupted gameplay one of the things that always struck me is that um a lot of people make the mistake that you should just stop doing any ad um when you have any payment in terms of the game and it always strikes me what you're doing is you're you're preventing the benefits of things that rewarded ads do if you do that and people actually like the ability to be able to break out of the things that they're stuck in either through spending money yeah or by having a VIP or also being able to have all that I know I've never seen any barriers with rewarded ads in subscribed users personally but is that am I right I know that's your policy but is that your observation as well uh we also saw that rewarded AIDS are very much welcome even for subscribers because they decide

themselves when they want to see them four years ago we had a policy against rewarded ads but then we got feedback from our partners like they work really well and our players would still I think there's a big angle on that which is really interesting which is if you just give coins or something very basic that doesn't have any reflection on the value of play I think it can feel like attacks whereas if it's something that benefits my play directly and obviously or you're you're foreshadowing something I might want to buy those sort of things can be still really effective I think yes okay so I'm hogging because this is Michael I love this this is actually what the stuff I love it's like building long-term relationships with players that they want to and you are constantly giving them value and you need tools like this to be able to do that in my opinion anyway yeah I've said that before I know anyone else in the room who has any questions though yeah I'm going to come back to you and give you the mic

thanks for the insight as you played a lot of Pokemon go you told your level of 43 yes um I do wonder what have you experienced to your opinion what is done well in monetization and what could be improved in Pokemon bow go as an example I think one of the things they have done well is to make it make it accessible for those that don't have a credit card so they they can get a lot of the young audience in which is really important um but then they also have a lot of good options for those that do have a credit card I have on several occasion see grandparents with their grandkids and the grandparents that have access to real money to spend have the opportunity to do that to buy for the special events and also they can gift it to someone else which is a

really powerful feature so you can help grandparents gift something to their grandkids which is really brilliant I haven't noticed that on several locations that they can buy something for their friend um a little bit like what you can do on Steam as well you can buy something for a Forefront so which which in my mind is super powerful and they do the use of segmentation well yeah I think buying for friend is a really you know really exciting extra thing to think about because when you gifting is is incredibly kind of engaging and when you receive a gift like that the effect that has on retention is actually remarkable as well in my experience cool on that note I'm going to say thank you very much thank you as well and I also have to thank you for sponsoring this track so we're going to run some video I believe yes so cool [Music] thank you

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